


Stand Still

by JessBakesCakes



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:35:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29098143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessBakesCakes/pseuds/JessBakesCakes
Summary: “Why do you send me flowers in April? Don’t give me the ‘man of occasion’ line, because you and I both know that’s not the reason.”
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Donna Moss
Comments: 10
Kudos: 78





	Stand Still

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, all! This is a prompt I wrote on Tumblr that I'm particularly proud of. It's for yearncryrepeat on tumblr and the prompt was "Would you just stand still?" (from Gilmore Girls). I hope you enjoy as much as I enjoyed writing this one - thanks for reading! This takes place in season 4, in my mind.

“You’re infuriating,” Donna says, pushing her way into Josh’s apartment. **  
**

Josh yawns. It was a rare early night at the White House, and after a long few weeks of running on fumes, he’d fallen asleep on the couch. It felt like he’d barely gotten any rest when he heard a knock at his door. Now he’s standing in his living room in a Mets t-shirt and sweatpants, eyes mostly closed, hoping that if he doesn’t allow them to fully open he can get back to sleep when Donna’s done with whatever the hell she’s doing now. 

“Fortune cookie, or horoscope?” he croaks, his voice still sleepy and hoarse. 

“What?”

He shuts the door behind her and checks his watch. Apparently, he fell asleep on that arm, because the band has pressed red marks into his skin. “It’s almost midnight. You aren’t drunk. So you’re here telling me something now that you can really tell me tomorrow because something has told you to seize a moment, or live, laugh, love, or whatever.”

Donna scrunches up her nose. “I’m perfectly capable of taking charge of my own life without being pushed to action by sayings you can find on a t-shirt at the beach.”

“You go through… phases of things. You latch onto weird stuff.”

“I don’t _latch onto weird stuff_ ,” she answers, repeating the latter part of the sentence in a tone that suggests that she doesn’t appreciate the implication.

He sits down on the couch. “Can you get to the monologue listing all the precise reasons I’m infuriating?” 

“The flowers.”

“Ah.”

She groans, folding her arms. “That’s all you have to say?”

“I don’t know what else there is to discuss about them. You hate the flowers, then you hate me for a little while. We did the Ricky and Lucy-esque performance at work already,” he says, stretching, having given up on the idea of crawling into bed as soon as she leaves. “We can have our moment of mutual understanding and refreshing candor, then I can go back to sleep.”

“Why do you send me flowers in April? Don’t give me the ‘man of occasion’ line, because you and I both know that’s not the reason.”

“That _is_ the reason,” he insists. “Marking the occasion of your official, permanent return to the campaign.”

“To the campaign, or to _you_?”

“Can’t have one without the other, can you? Kind of a package deal.”

“Joshua,” Donna says, exasperated. “You’re not understanding.”

Josh raises his eyebrows. “That’s certainly the first thing you’ve said tonight that makes an ounce of sense.”

“You threw snowballs at my window! You told me I looked amazing!”

He sits up straight. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You threw snowballs at my window, danced with me, and you said I looked amazing.”

“That’s because you did look amazing,” he protests. “Was I not supposed to tell you that? Should I have been a wise-ass instead?”

Donna begins to pace his living room. “See, this is exactly it. You buy me flowers, you flirt with me, you actively look for reasons to be near me, but your default mode of communication is… _this_?”

She doesn’t sound angry. Her voice is shaky, like she’s been thinking it for years and she can’t hold it in anymore. Finally it hits him. She knows how he feels, and she feels the same way. She loves him. That’s what she’s trying to say.

In a split second, there are forty or fifty reasons flashing through his mind that each indicate why this… whatever it is that they’re thinking about starting… is a bad idea. They’re the same reasons he’s repeated to himself after he catches himself staring at her, or sabotaging a date with yet another gomer, or calling her into his office with a mind-numbing task for her to complete only because he hasn’t seen her face in two hours and he misses her. 

But he doesn’t care about any of those reasons at the moment. 

“Donna.”

“Do you know how many people have asked me if we’re dating? Do you know how often I have to tell people there’s nothing going on between us, when there is, in fact, something going on between us? What that something is, I have no idea, but… there’s _something_ , Josh!” 

Josh stands and walks toward her. “You’re gonna wear a hole in that carpet if you keep pacing.”

“Would you stop with the snark and listen to me?” 

“Would you just stand still?”

She does as he asks, and he pulls her close for a kiss. It seems to surprise her at first, but Josh can feel the tension leave her body moments after his lips touch hers. 

It feels right, it feels safe, it feels meant to be. It surprises him how natural this seems. He deepens the kiss when she puts her hand in his hair, and suddenly she pulls back, grinning. 

“What?”

“Ricky and Lucy? Really?”

“You really want to argue about this now?”

Donna takes his hand. “I suppose not.”

“Next year when you get flowers in April, you can’t get too mad at me.”

“Not if you send them on the right day,” she counters, leaning in closer to his lips in an attempt to kiss him again. 

Josh looks at his watch. “It’s 11:56.”

“Your watch sucks. It’s 12:08.” 

“I guess we can argue about that next year, then.”

He laughs and jokingly turns on his heel to walk away from her, but she grabs his wrist, smiling.

“Stand still.”


End file.
